Need frequently arises in the printing industry for proportional size transfer of a photograph or like item to be included in a printed text. Customarily, such size transfer is accommodated manually by making a measurement of an original, making notation of the measurement and repeating these steps for the intended text size and then computing the ratio thereof. These labors are both time consuming and laborious, rendering printing activities less efficient and more costly.
By way of known prior art teachings which may be material to the invention discucced below, planimeter devices are widely known, for example, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,118,773 to Ball and U.S. Pat. No. 3,497,959 to Englesman. The planimeter of Ball, which is described as being usable in reduction or enlargement, involves an input wheel engageable with the surface of the original for displacing an indicator on wheel rotation in traveling across the original. The Englesman planimeter involves an apertured wheel which generates output pulses by interrupting a light beam in the course of wheel movement, thereby indicating distance transversed. Neither Ball nor Englesman disclose any companion apparatus cooperative with such planimeters to directly indicate reduction/enlargement ratio. In a separate type of known prior art, output magnification indicating means is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,021,115 to Jeppesen. Jeppesen teaches apparatus providing such output indication upon relative movement of a lens and an object supporting plate.